Great day

Yesterday was a great day.
It started off by being productive at work. Fridays are sometimes very productive days. There are fewer people at the office, and even though I appreciate my colleagues, it can be nice to have the place to oneself every now and then. I usually do oral recordings and sensitive phonecalls on fridays.
Students are also delightfully absent on most fridays. I know how this sounds, but the work of at teacher would be so much easier if it wasn´t for the students! I would get so much more work done if the students didn´t interfere with their comments and questions all the time!
I remember when I used to work at a restaurant, we had exactly the same problem and often discussed with the chefs how it would simplify our work if people would eat at home and stop bothering us at the office.
Well, don´t get me wrong. I love my students of course. They are the reason I am doing this job. But sometimes, if you have reports to write or presentations to complete, you are better off without them. And on fridays they tend to leave me alone.
I had presentations to write. Next week I am giving one at a seminar organized by the Nordic embassies in Reykjavik. I thought it was a small affair and said yes without thinking, but when the program arrived it was crowded with former presidents, current ministers and various foreign and domestic professors of languages. And little me in the center of attention. It turned out to be less of a lefthand job than I had figured. Me and Erika, my Swedish counterpart, sat down and organized it and worked it out together on google.docs. In a couple of hours we almost completed it and the 30 minutes allotted to us will be filled with intelligent talk. Maybe even interesting – who knows.
It is the first time I work with someone in google.docs simultainiously. It was cool. And effective.
I also managed to work on another presentation I am doing with three other collegues under the obscure title “Markmiðum miðlað til nemenda og tengsl við mat”. We have been discussing it for some weeks and it felt to me like we were talking and walking in circles, but it turned out it was a spiral, and all of a sudden we talked ourselves into the center of things and everything fell into place. A gratifying experience. I had taken it upon myself to put our main focuses into a visible pattern on an online mindmap, but ended up scrapping that idea and simply drawing it into our powerpoint presentation. I have not used those features in powerpoint before, so I actually mananged to learn something useful in the process. Another gratifying experience. Our super asked us to present our results to collegues in our school district end of April, and it looks like we might have finished by then.
Satisfied by two jobs well done I decided to take off early and look in on my powerlifting friends at Breiðablik. I have not shown my face there since I dropped out of training. The reason for which probably demands more soul searching than I am willing to invest.
My comrades have decided to name the place Camelot. The name gives me what our mayor so aptly terms “kjánahroll” but ok, navnet skjemmer ingen.
When I got there the girls from Ármann were squatting, supervised only by some poker-playing Dane in an easychair. The place soon filled up though, with lots of friendly faces – it felt lika a homecoming. And best of all, when I revealed my reason for being out of training I got no pity. No one put up a sorry face saying – oh you poor invalide. I feel so sorry for you – going to have an operation and your hip replaced and maybe even die.
The only thing I got were sympathetic straight looks and comments like – too bad. But can you bench?
You just have to love it!
Major championships are on the horizon and you could feel the focus in the people preparing for those. Others, with a more relaxed timeline, were hanging out and talking and making interesting comments. I think that the board of Kraft should hold their meetings at training facilities every now and then. To be where the action is and hear the truth from the horse’s mouths (no offence).
I left feeling invigourated and inspired to dig myself out of my hole and find a way to get back in training. I cannot bench, but maybe with elevated feet? And biceps curling is an exercise I have neglected for too long. ..
No excuse – just do it.
Back home I had a chance to eat and even watch Nytt på nytt before going with Kristján to Hallgrímskirkja for the St. John Passion. We had received special invitation and because we were late as always, we were seated on the front row looking straight up into the nostrils of Jesus.
I have performed this work with the Motet choir before and know it intimately and when I laid eyes on the to youngsters who entered the stage obviously intent on singing the parts of Jesus and the evangelist it crossed my mind that Hörður was putting an April joke over on us. Who were these children?? And how did they get into this grown up game??
Benedikt Kristjánsson, the evangelist, I had never heard before. Andri Björn Róbertsson, Jesus, I have seen on tv I believe, but I had no idea what kind of treat I was in for.

The minute Benedikt opened his mouth he owned the place. It was electrifying. The church was packed with people, must have been close to a thousand, and you could hear a pin drop. Until the choir joined in – that is.Interview with the guy
He showed a maturity in his interpretation that belied his young age by decades. Andri as well. Jesus was overpowering, even on the cross.
An eventful and memorable day.
And the weekend ahead.
Life is good.